Shaikh Abdullah bin Nassir Al Bakri, Manpower Minister, also stressed that the GCC states had always considered the human being as the focal point of development.
Shaikh Abdullah, current chairman of the GCC Labour Ministers’ Council, was addressing an International Labour Organisation (ILO) meeting in Geneva on Tuesday to review a follow-up report on the ILO ‘Declaration on Work Basic Principles and Rights’ titled ‘Price of Forced Labour’.
“The GCC states have always targeted the human being as the main focus of development and were among the first to enforce international laws in this regard. ”
“ They have supported ILO’s endeavours to rally international opinion to achieve a fair and just globalisation that gives priority to man and secure his rights,” he said.
He added that owing to the nature of major economic and social transformations and the comprehensive development taking place in the GCC countries, coupled with projected population growth, the member states had “taken precautions for such changes and to tackle them using a subjective scientific and legal framework which is based on respect of justice, equality and humans rights.”
He noted the GCC’s efforts in this regard and its cooperation with ILO in terms of promoting workers’ basic rights and protecting them against forced labour and injustices had been praised in the new ILO report.
Shaikh Abdullah pointed out that all GCC states had ratified Convention Nos. 29 and 105 on abolition of all types of forced labour.
He said the GCC states’ legislations and systems were consistent with “the essence and standards of international labour which have explicitly banned forced labour, fixed working and rest hours, vacations and regularised overtime.”
The Gulf countries had also joined the United Nations Convention Against Trans-national Organised Crime and the Palermo Protocol on the prevention, and punishment of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children,” he added.
“Our countries are currently witnessing a number of important initiatives, not only at the government level, but also to establish national control mechanisms to prevent human trafficking and promote the role of the civic society,” the Omani minister said, adding:
“The role of civic society organisations, human rights societies and committees, and labour federations have emerged to stop misuse of labour, train government employees and officials and incriminate human trafficking cases and all forced labour,” he added.
The GCC, the minister said, had adopted a model law on protecting the rights of expatriate workers.
